Facsimile (fax) technology has been a successful means to transmit documents electronically. With the emergence of publicly accessible data networks and electronic mail (e-mail) applications, it appeared as though that fax communications would be rapidly replaced by e-mail. However, it is now clear that the two technologies will co-exist for a while.
In a deployment of fax machines in an office environment equipped with Internet access, a fax server is connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) by one or more dedicated lines, such as T1/E1. As observed from the perspective of the fax server, the PSTN is both the source of incoming faxes as well as the destination for outgoing faxes. The fax server is also connected to a packet-switched network, which provides connections to users. In this way, the fax server provides desktop faxing capabilities via various e-mail applications. The fax server can also used to provide fax-back transaction confirmation, fax broadcasting or automated form processing.
The fax server uses specialized interface circuits for converting the fax information communicated by the users. When a document arrives at the fax server, the fax server converts the document into a format that is suitable for transmission over the PSTN. Thereafter, the fax server sends the converted document over the PSTN via its dedicated interface circuits. Conversely, for a fax arriving at the fax server, the fax server identifies the destination user, converts the incoming fax transmission into a format suitable for delivery to the destination user, and sends the converted document to the destination user over the internal IP network.
In a common enterprise, the users are not only connected to the fax server via the internal internet protocol (IP) network, but are also connected to an internetworking gateway, which connects the internal IP network to the Internet. The gateway allows a user to communicate electronically with other parties connected to the Internet. Such electronic communications may include store-and-forward messages (e.g., e-mail), real time one-way communications (e.g., live TV), real time two-way communications (e.g., Internet telephony, etc.).
The gateway is typically connected to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The connection between the gateway and the ISP or the PSTN is typically established via dedicated T1/E1 lines or in some cases optical fiber, similar to the connection between the fax server and the PSTN.
It is apparent that a first set of dedicated T1/E1 lines are required to provide fax functionality and a second set of dedicated T1/E1 lines or other data transmission media are required to provide Internet access. The use of two sets of dedicated data transmission media is expensive to maintain and, moreover, it is possible to experience the situation in which either set of lines is idle while the other set is being used at its maximum capacity. In such a situation, the capacity of the underused set of lines goes to waste. The requirement for dedicated hardware for interfacing with the PSTN translates into a further non-negligible expense for the enterprise.
Multiple-function peripheral devices enable various combinations of fax, print, copy, and scan-to-store functionality to end users. The manufacturers of these multiple-function peripherals have also successfully integrated the functionality of scanning and communicating a document as an attachment in an e-mail message by integrating network interfaces or adapters. These systems require an operator of the multiple-function peripheral to enter a destination e-mail address. Even when the destination address has been entered and stored in an electronic address book, accessing the address book, locating and selecting the destination address is time consuming.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop systems and methods that overcome these shortcomings in the integration and flexibility of fax and e-mail functionality.